Fascination
by xLaramiex
Summary: Ch1: John returns home to find Sherlock sleeping on the sofa. At least, he thinks he does. Ch2: Once again, John is forced to abandon his food to trail after Sherlock. He doesn't even know why.
1. Fascination

When John gets home and struggles to balance three shopping bags long enough to open the door it is to find Sherlock curled up on the sofa in his dressing gown with his back to the room.

_Oh, God,_ he thinks. _He's sulking._

"I'm back, Sherlock," he announces as he drags the plastic bags into the kitchen and puts away as much as he can. It is difficult, because the cupboard that used to contain packets of pasta appears to have been taken over by Sherlock's books in his absence. Sometimes he would swear the stuff moved on its own.

Leaving the remainder of the food in the carrier bags and shoving them onto the table (which he didn't like to call the dining table because he could only recall actually dining on it three times - no, two, the third time Sherlock had got a call about a murder case), he wanders back into the living room, curious to know what Sherlock is sulking about. If he can talk him out of it, this evening will be a lot less stressful.

"Sherlock?" he calls gently as he approaches. Sherlock does not stir. John lays a hand on his shoulder and leans over him. What he sees makes a bubble of laughter rise up through his chest; Sherlock is asleep, his eyes closed, his expression calm. A smile tugs at John's lips and he shakes his head in wonderment. He has seen Sherlock sleep before, but usually it is slumped over a pile of notes at the table or sprawled semi-elegantly over a chair.

John turns away from the slumbering Sherlock Holmes and sits down with the newspaper he has bought, shaking it out with a satisfied sigh. He hasn't read a recent newspaper in weeks; Sherlock tended to appropriate them and hide them away somewhere.

"If you find anything unusual, tell me," comes Sherlock's voice, and John jumps, his heart pounding with the shock.

"I thought you were asleep! Why didn't you answer me?"

"Pointless," his flatmate responds shortly.

Rolling his eyes, John goes back to his paper. _Stupid genius,_ he thinks irritably, but with more than a modicum of fondness too. With a rustle of dressing gown, said genius stands up and comes to stand behind John's chair, leaning over his shoulder to read the paper.

"Homicides? Missing jewels? _Anything?_" There is a note of desperation in his voice that John recognises all too well. He calculates he has about an hour of winding him up before Sherlock starts shooting the walls with boredom. There isn't a predictable time scale to Sherlock's behaviour, per se, but John has spent enough time watching him to know at which stage in the 'boredom-ometer' - as he dubs it self-consciously in his head - Sherlock is.

_1. Complaining_

_2. Lying around the house practically cross-eyed while staring at the ceiling or questioning John relentlessly_

_3. Desperately searching through newspapers or old case files_

_4. Distraction techniques - dangerous experiments or shooting the wall_

There is also a tentative:

_5. Drugs_

Although he has never caught Sherlock, he is quite sure by now that number five is correct.

"Sorry, Sherlock, I think London's being well behaved today."

"Yesterday," Sherlock says absently, reading an article about a woman who had filed a harassment charge against her boss.

"What?"

"Newspapers don't predict what is going to happen today, they tell you what happened yesterday. One cannot report a crime without data, and there is no data unless the crime has already been committed." There is a moment of quiet in which John vaguely wishes he hadn't bothered opening his mouth and that Sherlock would not go on too long. "Unless, of course, it is that particular brand of crime which is made up of several component parts, in which case someone like myself would be able to predict the latter parts with considerable accuracy."

"I get the idea," John interrupts hastily, before Sherlock can really get into his stride.

Sherlock makes a frustrated noise in the back of his throat, and they keep reading. "You read so slowly," he complains after a minute.

"Shut up, Sherlock." The tone is mild, but Sherlock does so anyway.

They share a comfortable few minutes of silence, Sherlock still leaning over John's shoulder to read.

_Cat survives after 7-floor fall_

_The best way to save your money!_

_Afghanistan: sinfully short of supplies?_

This last headline catches John's attention with a jerk to the stomach as though it had caught him with a hook. He sits up straighter and brings the newspaper closer to his eyes to read it better.

Halfway down the article, he feels something on his ear - he jerks away and stumbles to his feet in surprise, the newspaper falling apart and floating to the floor.

"Sherlock, did you just _lick_ my _ear_?" John asks, bewildered.

"Yes," Sherlock replies matter-of-factly, watching him intently.

"But - but - what - just - _what?"_ he stutters.

"It was an experiment," his flatmate says coolly.

"An experiment?" John repeats flatly.

"Yes."

"I'm going to regret asking this," John begins, quite certain of this fact, "but what were you experimenting?"

Sherlock's face scrunches up distastefully. "There are all these unwritten rules about personal space," he waves a hand as though they are insignificant, "I wanted to see what happened if I broke one. And it is apparently that the subject leaps away and stammers ineloquently."

John blinks at him. "Right…"

_Oh, God, it was that bloody article about the woman and her boss, it's put him straight into number four. But then, licking my ear isn't exactly dangerous. Maybe I need another category._

Suddenly something occurs to him. "Sherlock, you're not going to do this to anyone else, are you?" he asks in a worried voice.

Sherlock smirks, and it lights up his eyes with amusement. "Jealous?"

"Worried for your safety, actually, and I seem to be the only one. You can't go around licking people's ears."

"Why?"

Sherlock seems genuinely curious, and John fights the urge to roll his eyes. "Come on Sherlock, don't be an idiot."

"I'm not an idiot!" Sherlock retorts, scowling. "Obviously I know that licking strangers' ears is liable to lead to bodily harm to myself, but the point of the experiment is to ascertain how different people react. Is it worse for a stranger or an acquaintance?" he asks rhetorically.

"An acquaintance," John says at once. "Because they'll be worried that they have to see you again."

"I see…" Sherlock replies, looking thoughtful. "So would that be better or worse than your reaction?"

"Probably worse, since I pretty much expect you to be unexpected by now."

Sherlock grins, and it seems to spread through his entire body, radiant and all-encompassing. "And isn't it so much more fun?" he says.

"Oh, God, yes."

-:-

_First Sherlock fic! Probably the only one, too. This is just my take on their friendship: mutual fascination with the other._


	2. An Experiment

_The idea for this came from the BBC Science In Action Podcast - it's strange where inspiration can come from! I suppose it could be fluff if you turn your head upside-down and squint, but it's really intended as a friendship fic._

-:-

John was about to take his first bite of cheese on toast when Sherlock called from the living room.

"John! We're going out!"

The bread froze an inch away from John's mouth. He put it down with a sigh, closing his eyes momentarily. He sat back and looked over at Sherlock, who was pulling his coat on while walking towards him. John was reminded of a bat.

Sherlock hooked a hand under John's arm and pulled him up; John scrabbled for his breakfast.

"No - no - Sherlock - wait -" he protested as he was swept along by the mini-whirlwind that was Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock stuffed one of John's arms into the sleeve of his jacket, and briefly struggled with the other before simply hanging the jacket over his shoulder.

"Sherlock!" John tried again as Sherlock made to push him out of the door. "I'm not coming out with you now, I'm having breakfast."

Sherlock ignored his words, because John was pulling on his jacket and he could tell he didn't mean what he said.

Consequently, an hour later John found himself being bustled into a large building with no idea what he was doing there - he had tried asking Sherlock and the only reply had been "I'm conducting an experiment."

He followed Sherlock up two flights of stairs, down a short stretch of corridor and through a door which looked private. Largely because there was a sign on the door that said "Private." Okay, so the deduction wasn't quite up to Sherlock's standard.

"What are we doing here?" he asked.

"Ah! There you are," Sherlock exclaimed to a middle-aged, dark-haired man, ignoring John's question entirely. The man shook Sherlock's hand with a warm smile.

"Is this Dr Watson?" he asked, turning to John.

"Of course it is," Sherlock said frankly, just as John said:

"That's me."

"Shall we get started?" Sherlock prompted impatiently.

For the next ten minutes, John sat - completely bemused - as the man who he assumed was some kind of scientist or doctor flashed lights into his eyes and asked him which side was flashed first. The man then typed something up on the computer and printed it out; John got the uneasy feeling of waiting for his end-of-year school report. What on earth was Sherlock up to?

After receiving the folded piece of paper, Sherlock thanked the scientist and swept out without another word with John in his wake. He didn't look at the paper until they were settled into a cab. John read it sideways.

"_Today's experiment suggests that the subject, Dr John Watson, has a medium risk of developing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder after a significantly traumatic event. More tests would have been more conclusive but without attempting hypnosis it is difficult to be certain."_

"Sherlock!" John said indignantly. "Why are you prying into my head? Don't you get enough of that as it is?"

"I was merely curious," Sherlock replied imperiously, folding the paper over and tucking it into his pocket.

"You can't just use me as a replacement for your chemistry set!" John said angrily.

"Well, I'm sorry for caring about you," Sherlock snapped, turning away from him to stare out of the window moodily.

Taken aback, John was silent. He was finding it difficult to persuade himself not to smile. "What?" he managed.

"Nothing."

Still fighting a smile, John hid his expression by looking out of the other window. "Only you would drag me away from my breakfast, take me an hour across London and get someone to experiment on me and then say it's because you _care_ about me," he said to the window.

"I didn't let him hypnotise you," Sherlock replied rather forlornly, "because it would probably have made you have a flashback."

John looked back at his flatmate, touched by what he recognised as a great act of empathy from his friend. Sherlock had left an experiment half-finished purely to spare his feelings. At last, he let his smile spread across his face. "Thank you."

-:-

_Disclaimer: The people and places are made up, though the concept is real. I'm not making any comment on Peter what's-his-name, the actual person who discovered this (apart from saying that he's bloody brilliant)._


End file.
